Drive to restart peace process starts now, says Ahern

The Taoiseach has described his talks with British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair in Downing Street this afternoon as the starting point in a drive to resolve the issues of police reform, demilitarisation and decommissioning.

He said everyone was aware of the issues but the two governments would combine their efforts from today to resolve these with the agreement of the parties involved.

Top of the agenda for today's meeting was mapping out a process to restore power-sharing in the North. Power-sharing collapsed last October after the Assembly and power-sharing executive were suspended amid allegations the IRA operated a spy ring at Stormont.

Mr Ahern said he hoped the governments could hold a round-table meeting with the parties in a few days to try to "chart out a constructive and final way to the full implementation of the Agreement as we head to the fifth anniversary of it".

Asked if a deal could be agreed in time to allow the planned Northern Ireland elections in May to proceed, the Taoiseach replied: "To find an agreement to complete all of the aspects of the agreement is going to be difficult.

"At the same time we have I think moved an enormously long road in the last five years and after all of the meetings this week I sense determination by everybody acknowledging that there are huge difficulties and, probably as always, different views about how we can resolve things and different interpretations.

Questioned about the commitment of the British Prime Minister to resolving the issues Mr Ahern said Mr Blair had stated clearly in the autumn that he wanted to deal with the outstanding concerns as quickly as possible.

It is understood that other issues - such as the theft of police files from Castlereagh police station and the Stevens report into alleged security force collusion in the murder of Catholics - were also discussed during the meeting.

Mr Blair is also meeting the Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble, in an attempt to get the former First Minister to bring his party back into power-sharing government. But Mr Trimble may be reluctant to commit his party before elections due to take place in May.